SMEs and Process Management (BPM)

There is always a lot of discussion amongst BPM analysts as to reasons why many SMEs (around 50-300 strong in employees) don’t use BPM solutions? There are many factors highlighted once you start looking around the web, including:

• Unaware of BPM
• Lack of drive for change
• Lack of funds and or time
• Scale of the organisations

There is a great post here from Andrew Smith on this subject, looking at the factors above in a little more detail. http://andrewonedegree.wordpress.com/2010/06/22/why-do-so-many-200-300man-sized-organisations-not-have-bpm/

However, in a recent discussion on Twitter and LinkedIN, it seems the root factor is an organisations size. The scale of their processes have a relevant impact on the factors mentioned already, so smaller organisations have a lack of drive for change (regarding BPM) because they really don’t feel they need to improve efficiency. Because of this they may well be unaware of BPM or what BPM type solutions can deliver. So the main factor for process improvement not being addressed in small organisations (SMEs) appears to be one of scale.

If we regard BPM as a discipline, used to improve business processes, then the issue of scale will for sure highlight inefficiencies in business processes. Scale in this case though isn’t just about the size of a process, or the number of collaborators that make up that process, but also the number of items that move through the process.

 

Let’s make do

With smaller businesses the option to “make do” is a compelling one. When you need to correct processes, or deal with issues, small businesses just make do and get on with it. It’s far easier to deal with a small number of issues than thousands, because of this, small businesses are quite happy to operate with inefficient processes in place. To put it bluntly, they get the job done eventually…

But, making do also applies to IT investment, not just processes. For a small business, do they really need to invest heavily in technology, or can they make do with MS Office in the cloud? Can they make do with small off the shelf IT solutions? Can they even make do with not employing a dedicated IT member of staff? The answer is, yes, they can make do.

If SMEs can make do in so many areas of their IT and Business, then they will make do without typical BPM disciplines and software. We have to remember that for small businesses, investment is not only in terms of hard cash, but also in terms of employee’s time. With smaller companies, an individual’s time becomes a high valued commodity, one which often cannot be spent on areas outside the core business, such as helping design more efficient processes or administering software solutions. This in effect has a big impact on the “drive for change”, effectively suffocating drive for change that may arise.

Planning ahead

While making do works to some extent, there are many limitations. The main side effect of making do, is trying to grow a business. If your business starts to grow but your infrastructure (IT and processes) cannot cope or highly inefficient (which may only start to show itself once you have more items in a process, more work to complete or more collaborators), then your back office is really going to start to struggle. All of a sudden process inefficiencies become a real issue and can threaten the whole success of the business.

Making do also won’t help you get ahead of your competition. We have to remember that process efficiencies feed into better services, including customer facing services, which ultimately lead to happier customers, better customer retention and a greater turnover.

The question is then, how can SMEs take advantage of the same BPM type software that larger organisations are able to do? How can they find the investment in time and money terms to enable them to drive change within the organisation for the better?

One answer is to take the plunge, invest heavily and hope that you grow your business to warrant that investment. This is a little risky, but many a business plan has worked in this way. But is there another way?

 

Could SaaS be the answer?

Software as a Service (SaaS) potentially provides SMEs with a way of accessing the same technologies as larger organisations do (in this post we are thinking of process improvement solutions). There are many benefits of cloud computing and SaaS, however, small businesses have to be aware of their industry governance and just how a cloud based solution can work for them. That aside, SaaS could potentially unlock the door to many IT based solutions that typically would not be available to SMEs.

With this in mind though, we must ask ourselves, even with BPM in the cloud, will SMEs need or want traditional BPM?

 

Do SMEs need BPM software

If we mean traditional BPM software (BPMS) then the answer will be no.

The issue with BPM implementations is not only one of accessibility, monetary investment, but also investment in terms of time and how you want to operate your business. Traditional BPM implementations are highly structured and quite bureaucratic in their nature; they require a lot of time and effort from management, key stake holders and end users.

So traditional BPM is still a no go for SMEs, but process improvement is still a requirement. So what other options are there for SMEs regarding process efficiency?

Well the best option appears to be one that is less structured than BPM, a solution that allows processes to be detected, then analysed, reviewed and refined to drive process efficiency. This means SMEs are far more suited to Case Management type solutions and APG (Adaptive Process Guidance) based implementations. (Many will argue that these are BPM solutions, but they do operate differently to the typical BPM software or BPM the discipline, which you can find defined here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_process_management)

Such solutions are far more flexible and will allow many more processes to be incorporated, without a massive investment in terms of process design and other areas associated with typical BPM.

Case Management gives SMEs a step into process management and requires far less investment in terms of process design time than typical BPMS implementations. However, Case Management can fall short on structured processes. This is where APG can step in. APG is supposed to deal with unstructured and structured processes, providing organisations with the capabilities to manage highly structured, high volume processes (typical BPM territory) and highly unstructured, flexible working processes (typical Case management territory). APG is quite an exciting term and could well be the best route for SMEs to manage their processes if and when it starts to take hold in the BPM marketplace.

 

Conclusion

SMEs can benefit greatly from process management; however, traditional BPM will not be what SMEs are looking for (majority of), because of two main reasons:

1)      There is a big overhead in terms of investment in time, effort and money

2)      Traditional BPM is too rigid for many processes within the organisation

The second point is illustrated far more within smaller organisations. If SMEs are to invest in processes and software, then the software they choose needs to be able to adapt and be flexible to all their process needs, not just those that are highly structured with highly repeatable tasks.

These two points identify that Case Management and APG (Adaptive Process Guidance) are far better options for SMEs when trying to take control of their processes, plan ahead for the future and get a jump on their competition.

With the option of “cloud computing” and more importantly SaaS (Software as a Service), the “second barrier to entry”, if you like, is almost removed. All of a sudden, SMEs have the option to invest in APG or Case Management and take hold of business processes, something that only the larger organisations have been able to do in the past.

So will we see more SMEs turning to process management solutions in the future? The answer has to be a Yes.

The holistic buzz word

There is a lot of talk in the ECM and BPM worlds regarding taking a more holistic stance and approach on how best to implement solutions. It seems that to deliver greater business benefit, solutions either needs to communicate far more than typical integration is possible, or that silos that typically work together are in fact delivered as a single platform.

 

ECM, CRM and BPM

These three silos are often used together. CRM utilises both ECM (for storing unstructured content found in emails or letters) and BPM for managing particular processes. However, it is argued that because these are three silos, that often the user looses track of certain information, that the systems are rather cobbled together and as such, do not deliver the effectiveness they could if they were one.

One advocate of this is Andrew Smith, the managing director at One Degree Consulting and workFile ltd.

In an interview with eBizq.net, Andrew talks about the importance and benefits of taking a more holistic approach to how businesses work, and the processes they use. You can listen to the podcast here:

http://www.ebizq.net/blogs/2011/01/taking_a_holistic_approach_to.php

At workFile, they are driving towards a singular platform that delivers these three business functions in a particular fashion. They have termed this their @WE concept (Adaptive Working Environment).

A single platform

An @WE is to deliver a single platform for CRM, ECM and BPM while being completely adaptive to the needs of the business and end users. workFile believe this so much so, that they have broken away from their BPM module and re-invested in delivering something they term APG (Adaptive Process Guidance).

If you are looking for a better definition, then you can find one at http://www.workfilesuite.com/what-is-@WE.aspx

APG, Adaptive Process Guidance

This is a new term and essentially is a new way of tackling the same problem that BPM addresses, how to manage processes. APG though is quite different, people are at the centre of APG and as such, most processing rules are not enforced on the user, rather they are suggested (or the user is guided in their work). In addition, processes need not have an end result of a particular goal being reached, rather an objective can be set.

An objective is a process that contains no work as such, rather it uses information required in order to provide information as an when needed to the end user. This is seen as a true guide, or wizard guide, for processes that do not physically require work to be carried out on an object (such as a customer record, content files etc).

You can see workFile’s definition on APG here:

http://www.workfilesuite.com/downloads/The%20APG%20Definition.pdf

Conclusion

Holistic approaches are hot talking points. They make great sense as they are designed to see the bigger picture and therefore help business deliver better service experiences. If thats the case, then a more holistic approach will help organisations retain customer bases and give them a leading edge on their competition…

More reading…

For more reading on the APG debate, visit http://andrewonedegree.wordpress.com/

CRM, ECM, BPM flowcharts, Agile Case Management and Complex Adaptive Systems (CAS)

It’s a mouthful of a title isn’t it? But there are some big things happening here at One Degree with the workFile Vision suite. No sooner has version 1.0 been released, big changes are being made and put forward for version 2.0. Why is this? Well while the BPM industry looks to BPM 2.0, social BPM etc. A small band of BPM experts (a growing band)  are moving away from BPM as we know it. You may ask why?

Well first off, ECM, CRM and BPM (we will stick with BPM at the moment), are very much interlinked. Here at One Degree Consulting, we believe that these should be no longer seen as a single silo, but rather part of one solution. Changes are being made to bring this functionality closer and close in the workFile Vision product. The new release is more about empowerment. By bringing together a single, complete customer file, by empowering staff with all the information they need at hand, by empowering them to actually engage with the customer (via conversation on the web, through social media activities, via physical mail or over the phone) and to empower employees to  make good decisions that satisfy the customer needs. If you have a single silo that delivers all this then you have the capabilities to influence your customers and therefore, your market position.

Customer experience

The customer experience is everything, Apple has shown the way in this, by giving customers a good experience, via their products (if they are lacking functionality), but most importantly via their service. An Apple store makes the customer feel special; the brand makes a customer feel wanted, apple engages with its developers and customers alike very well, and because of this Apple has turned around its fortunes. So customer experience is ultimately the only way to influence your customers and your market.

To help deliver this, businesses have traditionally looked to CRM, and or ECM and tried to cobble together solutions. But is the future not therefore a single silo, a single platform for both? And if this is the case, shouldn’t that system also be able to manage the businesses processes too? Bringing together ECM, BPM and CRM is the first step, and workFile Vision, may not be the first platform to do this, but will be one of those looking to the future and delivering a single silo approach…

Movement away from BPM

For some time now, individuals have pointed out that flowcharts and traditional BPM “mapping” tools etc. are too rigid. That if anything they restrict a business’s capability to empower staff and adapt to new ways of working, new tasks and new market forces. Here at One Degree Consulting, we have long complained of the capabilities and restrictions typical BPM maps place on BPM. If you follow, Andrew Smiths blog (our MD), then you will notice he has raised this a number of times (http://andrewonedegree.wordpress.com) . However, many have identified that Complex processes cannot be mapped, and so this has led to the birth, or break away from traditional BPM. Some great reading can be found at Max J Pucher blog. http://isismjpucher.wordpress.com/

Complex Adaptive Systems (CAS) are solutions that help businesses to manage processes, while empowering users to update the process, to build new ways of working and to make key decisions. Because of this, such systems free the user from all the red tape, and enable them to do a good job. Don’t be fooled though that this means less efficient processes or a drop off in quality or there is less control, rather it is quite the opposite. CAS enforces quality while empowering users, there is no specific point within the process where you can jump out to “anomaly processing”, and everything is still audited for control. CAS is about detecting and the managing those new processes, processes that are detected ultimately by the user. CAS empowers the user to not only do their work, but to have their work “modelled” ready for other users to follow.

Will workFile Vision drop BPM

There has been talk that our own workFile Vision product will drop the term BPM. Though CAS is still about managing business processes, BPM has become a term (or technology) that people immediately link to a strict flowchart type map. This is not the correct view for workFile, and as such, the term may be dropped. If so the BPM module will become a thing of the past, probably to be replaced by CAS or some other term. The current BPM module still relies on aspects of intelligent business maps, but these are now being phased out, with developers working on a more CAS type solution. The replacement will be a simple status and rules based engine, with flexibility for integration being brought into a process based on the status of the piece of work, or the content that makes it up…There is also now talk of ECM being seen as too restrictive for workFile, as workFile delivers CRM and BPM with its ECM capabilities.

So what is the future for workFile Vision? Well the product has always been about introducing new ways of working, and it is only right that version 2.0 continues to deliver new ways of working to its customers and potential new customers out there. Andrew Smith stated:

“We want workFile to be at the forefront of thinking, I think a single silo that is highly adaptive and agile is the way of the future. We also want to be flexible in how workFile is delivered, so delivery to multiple platforms such as mobile will be included, in addition elements of cloud computing and synchronisation will also be looked at.”

Checklist for BPM implementation success?

Though titled “BPM implementation success” the points we highlight in this post really apply to the success of any form of IT in your business…The reason BPM has been singled out is becuase Gartner has identified seven major guidelines for business process management projects, and more importantly, their acceptance amongst staff and implementation…(The inspiration behind this post).

Sometimes I find these things hard to swallow, a checklist for success is, well never just that. However, a checklist does help improve your chances of success – and anything that helps the chance of success is always a good thing…So a checklist we have here. In this post, I am going to look at these 7 points and put our own, well, more real world and friendlier spin on the points.

Limit your scope

For some time now we have said, start small – but keep the big picture in mind. By starting small you really do ensure the project is manageable, and therefore easier to deliver. If you jump straight into the deep end, and go for a complete enterprise wide adoption – you are almost always going to find that things have been missed – the system is too complex etc etc. So, limit your scope and start small.

When starting out, pick something that is challenging and rewarding (once delivered), but something that doesn’t have too many complexities and for sure, something that doesn’t rely on too many external sources (be that other departments, LOBs).

Gartner suggest a timeframe of 60-90 days, but this is where we are too rigid. It is more important to pick the right process to start off with than look at the potential timeline. You may find a complex process with the right software could be implemented in 30-60 days, so why be limited by 60-90. In addition, you may well find the best process to start off with may take in excess of 90 days – so again don’t feel limited to that date range. I guess the point here is, don’t get swamped at the start (go for the quick wins).

High value

Whatever you choose as your first BPM implementation – make sure it is highly visible when looking at the benefits of BPM. So go for a process that isn’t too complex, but allows BPM to really add great value and process efficiency gains. This is key to getting the system adopted across the organisation.

Align your goals

Ok the Gartner report makes this a little hard to read. Basically, ensure that BPM is actually in line with a particular business goal. So for example, it is a goal of the business to reduce SLAs for a particular process. BPM can be implemented to fulfil this business goal. Make sure though, that everyone has the same goals in mind (different people have different agendas, and for your first adventure into BPM, try to ensure everyone has the same goals in sight)

Measuring BPM success

It is important that when you review the success of your BPM solution that you look at it from the right perspective, and measure this success in a credible way. There is no point in making wild claims that your BPM solution is increased efficiency by 50% when you have no real data to back it up. BPM is very good at providing you with information about throughput, handled items etc. But make sure you have data to compare this too (from the previous way you would work). If you have tangible measurements that can be played off against each other, then its quick and easy to illustrate the gains your BPM system has provided. It is critical that your measurements (well measuring stick) is agreed upon within the business amongst everyone involved – if not, then you are open to potential issues later down the line.

Agreement

All the stakeholders must agree on what is a success, and what is the common performance goal for all the different stakeholders. Far too often, one stakeholder will see a process improvement as a success, and others only as a partial success as their goals were far higher. So before you start anything, ensure everyone can agree an end goal that you are driving towards. Again without this, you will run into problems further down the line or with BPM adoption in a bigger scale.

Get a champion

Gartner says “business sponsor” however this sounds like someone who is just putting their name to an idea. What you really need is a “champion” of the system. By this I mean someone who is highly enthusiastic and highly motivated to see the system succeed. Such a person becomes the driving force for success and they help ensure all the people working on the solution pull together and get things done….Without a champion you are almost always fighting a tough battle (more so with end users).

User engagement

Get the users who actually use the system involved early on. Make them feel it is their system, theirs to own, their idea and it is they who will then ensure success of a project. Far too often users are last to see the system -  by which time they may be highly apprehensive of change, losing their jobs or just not confident with new technology. So, get users involved early on, so that when you get to a user testing environment and implementation – your users are behind the system and actively looking to use it rather than dreading the day…

If you want more information on the Gartner report you are going to have to purchase it direct from Gartner. You can purchase the full report here http://www.gartner.com/DisplayDocument?ref=clientFriendlyUrl&id=1254813 for US$95.00 (or re-read this post a couple of times and get in touch with us? J)

2010 BPM Predictions

At the beginning of the new decade, as to be expected, there’s been a lot of crystal ball gazing about what will happen in the year ahead. Gartner is no exception with their latest report on business process management highlighting what they see as the five major trends for 2010 and beyond – This article summarises it well.

The overriding trend, identified by Janelle Hill, research vice president at Gartner, is that business process management will be extended to include the management of unstructured work and data.

1. Technology Convergence

Business process management technologies will become more agile as maturing technologies like social software and mobile applications come together in BPM suites, making them easier to use and more relevant for the end user. As the business place changes, and the focus shifts to social media and mobile phone applications so businesses are available 24.7, this way of thinking makes sense,  when the overall aim of BPM is to increase business efficiency, no matter how the business works.

2. Deployment of Dynamic BPM

Companies will be forced to adopt more dynamic BPM technologies as they attempt to reduce the amount of time it takes to update and upgrade BPMs according to market demand – a thin client solution is better here as it easier to administer the changes centrally. As Andrew’s blog details, this is also where an intelligent map comes in. An intelligent map is more than just business processing rules. It contains actual business processing logic, it has the capabilities to bring in data from third party software and carry out complex calculations and functions. This means that when your business needs to adapt and change, updating processes are far easier and quicker. Since the map itself contains the business rules of your processes (as well as the definition of that process), you need only modify one thing, your intelligent map. A good example of a BPM platform that works in this way is workFile BPM. This way of working will enable companies to respond and more efficiently to changes in very volatile market places.

3. Tailored Solutions

In the coming four years, companies will focus more on the software that they have already and on placing individual components into a composition, rather than developing new software. This will provide a realistic alternative to the usual implementation choice of “build or buy” and will threaten the relevance of packaged applications providers. The result, Gartner says, is that companies will  have to think about projects in new ways with a greater focus on collaboration between business and technical roles – how long have we been saying that?!

4. More Multi-Enterprise Integration

 This will include solutions like business process networks (BPNs) which will have prebuilt translation packages, or business activity monitoring components.

5. Graphic Modeling Growth

Comprehensive graphical rather than textual process models that capture and represent organisational knowledge will become the common ground of business and IT roles. Process models ensure better company performance by providing a more complete picture of company position and by applying analytics for identifying new business patterns.

These are some interesting considerations if you are thinking of upgrading your BPM solution this year, or indeed investing in one in the first place.